A/N: Part one of Nemesis. Complicated indeed. Stuff that I rationalized...whatever dealings Bryce had with Tommy were before he stole the Intersect. That one moment with the medics...all that time they thought he was dead, he was sedated. Bryce says later it must have been a European clinic...he had no idea, which meant he didn't even know he came from Finland. Chuck never told Sarah what happened with Lou on camera...but she knew. Again, my Omaha back story is from my imagination, but nothing in canon contradicts it. Graham never mentions Bryce again and he gets orders from Beckman. I provided a more satisfying answer than the number of episodes in Tony Todd's contract. Lol. Here goes.
I think, somewhere in the back of my mind, I heard Casey say, "Didn't I kill him?" while we were standing there in the cloud of vapor. It was a disconnected thought, and it didn't fully register until later. I was in complete shock at that moment, so much so that I don't remember most of the details surrounding what happened directly following that. This is not Intersect memory loss, for as I was told by Casey while I was recovering, I didn't even remember it the next day while we were talking to the CIA. It made logical sense that Casey had been the one who shot Bryce, or more precisely whom it was believed had killed Bryce. I know I thought it was a possibility when we had started working together, but it was one of those things it was just easier not to talk about.
I do know that once we had a positive visual identification, all hell broke loose. Proper operating procedure would have been for the ranking CIA officer at the scene to take control. That, technically, was me, even though Casey was my partner and he was the senior operative. I was in such a state I honestly couldn't string two words together, so Casey took charge. I don't know if Casey thought he had interrupted something significant with me and Chuck when he'd arrived on the scene. My spy senses at that moment were all but gone, so I'm sure I wouldn't have noticed Casey acting strangely, even if I had remembered all of that.
He immediately seized control and called in additional tactical support. He dismissed the LAPD and the bomb squad. He called Beckman, specifically Beckman, and not Graham. Casey reported directly to Beckman first, the joint team second, and vice versa with me. I didn't know the reason, I still to this day don't know the reason, but Beckman also never informed Graham. She ran the entire show here, even to the point of debriefing Bryce after this whole incident was over. I wondered if Beckman suspected Graham of something specific or if it was just mistrust in general. As I mentioned before, I believe Graham already knew about Bryce. I now believe Graham knew Bryce was alive when he informed me of his death, although I didn't quite suspect that here.
Bryce reported to Graham, so that tactic was highly unusual. The tactical team, the recovery team, and every other operative involved with getting Bryce to a secure CIA facility were CIA, yet Casey and Beckman of the NSA were in charge…and Graham was in the dark. Thinking back now, it was a good thing I was in shock, because had I known all of that, I would have been much more suspicious of Bryce and what I ended up telling him. It ended up being important for later.
By the early morning hours, I had slept probably a total of four hours in five days. Exhausted as an adjective barely scratched the surface. I was so tired I was nauseous and my joints ached. I had cognitive issues, shock only exacerbating the feeling. I had trained for situations like that, and I had been coping all along. My ex-partner coming back from the dead, however, is not anything I could ever have imagined, let alone had to realistically deal with. I'm not sure what Casey saw–my sluggishness, careless disregard for safety…something, because he told me to go back to my hotel and sleep for at least six hours.
I did go back to my hotel, and I did sleep, but not right away. I actually made another entry in my video log, so tired I was practically delirious. The entire entry, it turns out, Casey edited out when he did his usual filtering that he was doing that I knew nothing about. I know that because that entry was there when I watched that unedited log after I lost my memory. Casey knew what had happened between Chuck and me, maybe not that day, but not too long afterward, whenever he saw that entry for the first time. He still asked me later to my face if I had done something to compromise myself, probably trying to get me to be honest with him.
All I talked about while I recorded that log was Chuck…and kissing him. I didn't even mention that I had just come from seeing Bryce Larkin apparently raised from the dead, and all that entailed. Every unanswered question I had been lamenting over was now within my reach, an interrogation session away…and all I could say was that I kissed Chuck. In my right mind, I hope I would have had the sense to not say that, not talk about that severe breach of protocol on the official record. I was too exhausted to even think, so I recorded that whammy for posterity. I went to sleep on top of the bedspread in my clothes, and I slept like a rock for six full hours until my alarm clock woke me up.
I had slept so soundly, I was disoriented when I woke up. I felt like I didn't know where I was. I had to look around, remind myself that I was in the Maison23 in Los Angeles. For some strange reason, I felt like I should have been in Mexico. With Bryce.
And then it all came crashing down on my head. Bryce was alive, sent in a shipping container through the Port of Los Angeles, from somewhere in Finland. Bryce Larkin was in CIA custody, probably awaiting interrogation. I needed to get there as soon as possible.
Still groggy, I grabbed my phone as I jumped off the bed. Five calls, all from Chuck.
Because I had kissed him for all I was worth not even 12 hours ago…
What was I going to do? How could I handle this situation? What kind of handler allowed herself to do what I did, throw myself at my asset like that? The entire situation was a disaster caused by me…and that was without Bryce's sudden arrival. Add his proof of life to that mix and…well…I was glad I'd slept, even if I had been so tired I nearly collapsed, because I didn't foresee myself being able to sleep again for a very long time.
I disregarded his missed calls and messages and I jumped in the shower. I got dressed very quickly and I let my hair air dry, something I almost never did, since it could curl in crazy directions and get frizzy easily. I looked like I had just rolled out of bed, but my looks were the last thing I was thinking about. I milled around the room after I was dressed, anxious, feeling like the gravity in the room had somehow been removed and everything in my life was free floating in the air all around me, like I remembered seeing on television when they'd shown footage from inside the International Space Station.
The only way to curb that feeling was to figuratively grab one thing at a time and anchor it down. First, I had to report to the CIA facility where I was sure Casey already was. I could find out everything that he knew as well as potentially get some very basic answers to questions burning in my mind. It was everything…Where had he been? When had he returned? Who had known of him and his whereabouts? What had been going on, what had happened when he left me in Mexico? How was he alive? Why did he lie to me and then leave me?
It was mid-afternoon by the time I arrived at the proper location, what looked like an office building that was a CIA facility. The building was locked down, and where they had Bryce was even deeper within the facility. The locks were coded. I had to be escorted into the area by an armed guard. Casey started to debrief me. This was when he realized that almost everything from the middle of the night hadn't registered in my memory. Surprisingly, he was rather sympathetic, understanding my shock combined with fatigue had caused the cloudiness. He started over and told me everything.
Bryce had been treated by CIA doctors and given a full exam. They had tried to ask him even basic questions, but he was unresponsive. He was restrained, considered extremely dangerous, as a rogue spy, which was how he had been branded. He had appeared disoriented, but Casey wasn't sure if it was legitimate or just an act. The doctor who had examined him believed, based on his findings, that Bryce had been treated for a potentially life-threatening gunshot wound to the chest some time in the past, but had most likely been in a drug-induced coma for an extended period of time. His atrophied muscles, weight loss, and blood work seemed to all point in that direction–as if he had been treated and then perpetually medicated the entire time we had all believed he was dead.
The only communication anyone received from Bryce was him asking for Chuck. Just his name, Chuck, over and over again, and not another word or response. I asked Casey if I could talk to him, but he got fiery angry and told me no, not under any circumstances was I to let Bryce know that I was here, period. I wondered at first if Casey still had suspicions about me, that I was somehow working with Bryce or I knew more than I had told him. By this point, however, I trusted Casey, even more than I thought I had trusted Bryce and I had been sleeping with him at the time. Casey was worried what Bryce would do if he knew I was here. I even think Casey may have been concerned for me, wondering if Bryce wanted to harm me.
Even back here, at high points, Casey's hard center had started to melt, just a little bit.
I asked Casey how it was possible that Bryce was alive. "Weren't you part of the processing team in D.C.?" I asked him.
"Technically, yes," Casey replied. "But that was the CIA's gig. The cleaners were CIA. I had the portable device in hand that he used to email the Intersect to Chuck. I didn't wait around for the body bag. I went to let Beckman know."
The same device that had been on Graham's desk when he sent me after Chuck. How did Graham have that device and not know where Bryce's body was? "That doesn't make sense, Casey. If there was no body, then…what happened? Who is buried in that cemetery?" I asked him.
"Maybe you should ask Graham," Casey said cryptically. "Or, on second thought, maybe you shouldn't," he added crisply.
I think now and wonder how that sentence didn't raise every hackle on the back of my neck. I think I can still chalk it up to my shock and fatigue. The fact that I found my mind wandering back to the sensation of kissing Chuck…of him kissing me…was also definitely not helping.
Casey told me to go get Chuck. I protested at first, asking him why we should put Chuck in such a dangerous situation. I was afraid of facing him, I know that now, but I couldn't let myself acknowledge it. If I hadn't already known about the situation at Stanford, which Casey knew nothing about, I think I would have fought harder. Bryce was just too dangerous. But, armed with the knowledge that he at one point had acted to protect Chuck in the past, I agreed. Anything to get him talking, I told myself.
I don't remember the drive from the building to the Buy More. One second I was in one parking lot, and then I was in the Buy More parking lot. I was distracted…and a distracted handler, meant to protect my asset, was unacceptable. I pulled myself together in the car and put on my mask of steel. Cold and aloof, I told myself. That was what I was projecting. Anything less would encourage Chuck, and after I had done such a fantastic job of screwing things up, the only thing keeping him out of an underground bunker was my ability to reset the situation back at zero. Zero degrees. Ice Queen, I told myself. I had to summon that inner blizzard to refreeze the parts of me that Chuck had melted into a warm spring.
Water expands when it freezes. I felt it, painfully, inside my chest as I summoned the cold. It was the opposite of the ice cracking in a glass of soda. Instead, it was like the sound the trees make in the winter when they are coated with ice and snow, creaking while they struggle not to break apart. I thought if somehow I could put my ear to my chest, I would hear that sound in there.
Chuck was talking to Morgan when I walked into the Buy More. I purposely walked to the side of the store, away from the main walkway, trying to be discreet. I was afraid of what Chuck might say…and I was definitely worried about how he was going to react when he found out Bryce was alive. I think Morgan saw me first, because I saw him point. When Chuck looked at me…the integrity of the ice inside me came into question. It was the way he looked at me, almost straight through me, with the power of a blow torch.
Maybe I had the power to reset myself, pretend that kiss hadn't happened (did I, though?)...but he certainly didn't. Chuck wore his heart on his sleeve and he hid nothing when it came to how he felt. I couldn't expect him to be able to do what I had trained myself to do…and yet, that was the only hope I had…that he could do that. He didn't want to do that…but he had to. I didn't care so much about my pain; I hated the fact that in all of that, now I had hurt him again.
I felt my face flush as he approached me. I had to force myself not to look at his lips as the memory of their softness assaulted me. I watched him running his hands down the sides of his pants…his nervous, sweaty palms. Everything that had happened between us was there on his face. It made–I made–everything harder, by doing what I'd done. I grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the group of people standing near us. I know he was rambling about the numerous calls he'd placed to me. I tried to stay razor focused, even as I was distracted by the soft thrill I got from touching his hand as well as correctly anticipating the hot moisture I found when I did.
I tried to tell him. This happened so many times it was almost ridiculous–Chuck just jumping ahead to blurt something out before I had something else to say. This was the first time. He always wanted to talk first. I actually think he always wanted to do that because he feared I was going to say something upsetting, and he wanted to get whatever it was off his chest before he lost his nerve. Eventually, I learned to gently let him know to not interrupt me, considering how much more effort it took for me to talk to him than for him to talk to me.
He started talking about me kissing him. The flush on my face got hotter, feeling like a sunburn, while I tried to get him to stop. I didn't hear everything he said, word for word, in my growing unease and anxiety. I do know he started to say it dismissively, like he almost understood it was a life or death situation and we may not have acted in a way that made sense. It was a good intro, if he had chosen to go there. But it was almost like he interrupted his own train of thought, circumventing his own argument before he said it to me so I could agree.
"You, uh, you kissed me…which was just…"
He sounded in awe of me, surprised, and breathless, all in one broken sentence fragment. His tone…the look on his face…I almost wanted to kiss him again, right there. The ice was cracking again, a constant internal battle between freezing and melting. I had to let the freeze win. I didn't want to hurt him, but I needed to blurt it out before I lost my nerve.
He started rambling about Thanksgiving dinner, about the cover we needed for that…he asked me if we were back together. No fake back together, just together. Lou popped into my head, and then out again. Oh god.
"Chuck, Bryce is alive," I said stiffly.
His face fell and the light in his eyes died. He went pale and started shaking. "Wh-wh-what?" he stuttered.
"I'll explain in the car, but we have to go. Ok, Chuck?" I said, as cool and professional as I could sound when I was talking to him.
I never really talked about this moment very much with Chuck, it not being one of our fondest memories. I tend to think he must have felt much of what I felt after I saw Bryce. I wonder how much of that car ride he remembers. I told him that Bryce was the package Yari had been tasked with moving. There was an oxygen supply in the capsule, which the timer was counting down. He had undergone a battery of tests…and the only thing he was asking for was Chuck. If I had not been so shell-shocked, I might have been able to relay more information to him; I just didn't have it.
Usually when Chuck is nervous, he talks more. Like he had started to do in the Buy More. This was beyond nerves. He didn't say a word to me the entire ride in the car. The silence was painful. This was astonishment, fear, maybe even anger, betrayal, and confusion as well. I know he was fighting heartbreak here too, thinking part of my demeanor towards him was because of Bryce. Chuck believed Bryce was an old love of mine, like he was a rival for my heart. Chuck had no idea of the truth, of course, and I made sure not to ever tell him the truth. Yes, it might have eased his mind, but I thought saying that only encouraged his feelings for me, which he couldn't hide, and that was a problem. A part of me was also ashamed of that relationship. Sure, I cared about Bryce, but the sex we had was still just…sex, purely physical in nature and meant nothing more. He had never come out and said so, but I was sure Chuck had never had sex just to have sex in his life. Again, I feared the way Chuck looked at me would change if he knew that.
The further into the bowels of the CIA building we moved, the more anxious Chuck became. He was continuously rubbing his hands down the sides of his pants. I could hear him breathing even though he was several feet behind me as we walked. He was very close to hyperventilating.
I walked him into the observation room, where Casey and I had been overlooking Bryce through the two-way glass. Casey was still there. In the time I had been gone, it seemed as if Bryce had awakened and was lucid, compared to how he had been before. They had him in an upright, seated position, with his wrists and ankles still bound in restraints. When Chuck moved to the glass, I heard him gasp silently, then hold his breath for what felt like an interminably long time before he started that same shallow, ragged breathing.
It was only then that he asked me how it was possible, a sort of layman's way of asking what I had asked Casey before. I told Chuck we didn't know, and that Bryce wouldn't talk to anyone.
"Not even you?" he asked me in disbelief. His tone cut into me…that vague, wistful jealousy apparent.
Casey told Chuck Bryce had no idea we were there. I told Chuck Bryce had asked for him, and Casey elaborated that they thought he would tell Chuck what they wanted to know. Basically, they were asking Chuck to interrogate Bryce, thinking he was a good choice to get as much information as they could. Chuck freaked out, of course. Some of that anger and betrayal came back in his tone, as his voice was bitter when he talked about Bryce ruining his life.
I told him to just be a friend, that he was good at that. Because he was.
He was calm after that…until Casey freaked him out again. I will say, part of Casey was being truthful, prepping Chuck for the danger of the situation. Still, he always had a way of crashing things down to earth, no matter how hard everyone else tried to keep things afloat. Classic Casey is what we now call that.
Bryce was disoriented it seemed, when Chuck started to talk to him. He said he didn't believe that he was the real Chuck. I don't know if that was an act or if he really was confused or drugged. Casey kept grumbling under his breath about Chuck's inexperience. Chuck almost lost it. In his defense, Chuck sucked in his breath, stuck out his chest, and went right back in to deal with Bryce, despite his trepidation.
They started talking in what sounded like gibberish, like a made up language or code, at least that was what I thought until Bryce called it Klingon. I didn't know what that meant at the time, but it's a real language that was developed for Star Trek…one of the movies, I think. Chuck told me later it's like a badge of honor for nerds everywhere, learning to speak in Klingon. I think you can learn it online like any other language. And as you may recall, I am gifted when it comes to languages. I can speak Klingon now, for the most part, as well as Chuck can. We only speak it in private, but, anyway, I digress. Chuck's Klingon satisfied Bryce.
Of course, Chuck didn't ask him anything we wanted him to ask. He focused on his own burning questions, not to say I blamed him. He asked about why Bryce stole the Intersect and why he sent it to Chuck. Then he asked how he was still alive. Bryce gave cryptic non-answers, like any good spy.
I watched Bryce tilt his head, beckoning Chuck closer. Casey whispered, "Oh, don't do that." Before I knew what was happening, Bryce broke free of his restraints, grabbed a large-needled syringe and grabbed Chuck. He demanded Chuck untie the bindings around his ankles. I grabbed my gun and ran, terrified that I was too late and I was going to find Chuck dead when I opened the door, cursing myself for not protecting him as I should have.
"Bryce! No!" I said sharply as I burst through the door. I was terrified, but my gun never wavered.
He was shocked, so badly that his grip on Chuck went slack. Had Chuck been more experienced at this point, he could have taken advantage of that and broken free from Bryce, but I'm sure he didn't even feel it, and there was no way for me to convey that message. Casey followed me in. Bryce taunted him to try again.
He kept Chuck hostage, the needle pointed at his throat, and dragged him backwards out into the corridor. Members of the tactical team followed behind us into the hallway, standard procedure, but I made sure to tell them to stand down. Their orders would have required them to shoot Bryce, aim to kill, in order to free Chuck. We needed answers as well as Chuck's safety. I kept trying to talk Bryce down, looking to appeal to something in him I wasn't sure was there any longer…or maybe, had never been there to begin with.
He looked different than the last time I had seen him. Not just his physical appearance, with his hair longer than I'd ever seen it and a scruffy-looking goatee. His eyes were clear, but he had an intensity about him that I wasn't used to. He threatened to kill Chuck. My gut told me he was bluffing, if only for the fact that killing Chuck right then and there would only result in his death as well. We had to let him go. He asked for the access code, then pulled Chuck into the elevator with him once I was forced to tell it to him.
Once the doors shut, Casey and I ran full speed down the stairwell, trying to beat the elevator, not even sure which floor Bryce was planning on stopping at. We exited on three different floors before we caught the elevator. It was stopped, however, which concerned me. When we finally got the doors open, Chuck was unconscious on his back on the floor of the elevator and the access panel from the top had been removed. I had my gun poised, but seeing Chuck was alone, I pulled it to the side. I felt the fear blast again, but I saw Chuck's chest rising and falling even from where we stood. The syringe was discarded on the ground. Sedative, I thought, a partial dose. He groggily woke up, still a little loopy, trying to touch my hair as it fell forward over my shoulders. Casey picked him up and dragged him to his feet.
The doctors in the facility checked Chuck out to make sure he was ok. I stayed with Chuck and the doctor while Casey had to go report that Bryce had somehow escaped from a high-level security CIA facility. Again, he called Beckman and only Beckman. This time, it made me wonder. But I didn't have long to wonder, because they gave Chuck the all clear and I needed to give him a ride home, since I had taken him from the Buy More in my car.
He was a little chattier than the last time we had been in the car together, but still not himself, not completely.
"Something weird is going on, Sarah," Chuck said to me, kind of out of nowhere.
"What do you mean?" I asked him, thinking how bizarre that sounded. Weird wasn't the half of it.
"Bryce was different…once we were alone in the elevator. It was an act, threatening me…all of that," he explained.
"I…wasn't sure," I muttered. I felt him look at me, almost straight through me, and I wondered what he was thinking. Was he surprised that I didn't know? Did he think I knew Bryce better than I really did?
Chuck continued, staring out the windshield again. "I flashed on someone he seemed to know…Fulcrum, although he didn't explain. He said he was right…specifically about the Intersect. What did he mean?"
I had never heard the word Fulcrum before, but it sounded ominous. An organization of enemy agents was a worst-case scenario. What had Bryce meant? I thought it had more to do with what Bryce thought he knew based on Chuck's test scores on Fleming's screening test. Chuck was the ideal Omaha subject. That had to be why Bryce had sent it to Chuck, at least part of the reason. Why he had stolen it and subsequently put the one person he had tried to protect in danger again…I still had no idea.
"I don't know, Chuck," I murmured, not turning to look at him as I drove.
"I told you I wished I could just talk to him," he added. "He's alive…and I still can't get any answers," he lamented.
My mind was in overdrive thinking about Bryce and all of his possible motivations, and I was only half listening to Chuck. "What happened with Lou?" I asked him, so distracted I hadn't realized I had asked him out loud.
Fortunately, he didn't make a big deal about me asking, regardless of what he thought. "I guess while we were in Stavros' trunk, Casey posed as an FDA agent. He found our location from what Lou told him. She thought I was just an FDA informant." He didn't say anything further, but I could tell from his tone that they weren't together any longer.
Why had Casey taken that risk? I wondered. She wasn't going anywhere and neither was her deli. He was still working at the Buy More. I was vaguely worried, but I figured he had it under control. First Tang and now Lou? "I'm sorry, Chuck," I said softly, not sure what I was apologizing for.
He breathed out hard, making a few consonant sounds without actually forming words, and then he stopped. Whatever he was trying to ask or say, he stopped himself and stayed silent. Due to the strange turn the conversation had taken, I was glad he didn't say whatever it was. The kiss was like an 800 pound gorilla on the armrest between us.
He told me he still felt groggy, foggy-brained I think was a word he used. I decided to walk him to the door just in case, rather than drop him off in case he was still wobbly on his feet. He repeated that as we were walking into the courtyard at his apartment. I told him it was just a half-dose and it would work its way out of his system by the morning.
Despite what he called his brain fog, he was intense when he asked me about Bryce. He thought Casey and I were going after Bryce. I told Chuck no, that was somebody else's job to find him. He got more intense, not liking that answer. He called Bryce my old flame, which I hated. The kiss was still there like a ghost standing at my shoulder. I summoned more ice, telling him we each had our own assignments, all about my professionalism and nothing more.
He asked what it meant for us.
Us? Which "us" was he referring to? There was no "us," there could never be. Crack…crack…I could hear it, feel it, deep inside me. He clarified when I gave him a flat, professional answer. What about our fake relationship…the one he had fake broken six days before. What about it? And then he brought up Bryce.
Of course. How could he pretend to be my fake boyfriend…if I had a real one. That was what he meant, I know it. Bryce was a rogue spy who had threatened his life. Did he really think just because Bryce was alive that changed everything? We were spies first, partners second, bedmates third. I don't think he realized just how much of my life belonged to the CIA, even though he had started to feel that way himself, when he couldn't get away from what he called his spy life. As an assignment, I could have been pretending to be Chuck's girlfriend, pretending to have sex with him, while I was fucking Bryce for real…and it was all just status quo. That truth was a little too ugly to tell him.
Ellie surprised us as she came up from behind. I still wasn't sure what Chuck had told her about us and Lou and everything that had happened. I only knew I hadn't seen Ellie or Devon for almost a week and I wondered what the fake story was. She looked surprised to see me, and she even said it was good to see me, acknowledging the gap in time. She asked me if I was coming to Thanksgiving dinner, a little hesitantly. Chuck must have told her we were…not copacetic, however that translated.
He looked uncertain, but I answered brightly, and right away, that I was. I gave her a fake smile that had a genuineness I wasn't aware of. That aching loneliness, always there inside me, eased just a bit when I felt included in Ellie's circle. Despite my dissembling, she always made me feel like I was part of her family, like I was wanted there with them. A real holiday like that? I'd never had one before, not in 26 years. Everything was crazy…but I still wanted that, more than I think Chuck ever knew. He looked surprised that I accepted the way I did, I'm sure because he thought our situation had now changed. That answer was the only response I gave to him about our status.
We couldn't go back to the way we had been, I thought. I had kissed him and messed everything up. We would still be pretending, but I knew now I needed to stop letting myself get lost in it and pretend that it was real, no matter how good that made me feel. That had caused that situation in the first place, all my jealousy and heartbreak over something that wasn't remotely real…on the surface, anyway. I had to be a better handler, I told myself.
I said goodnight quickly, while Ellie was still unlocking the apartment door, and walked myself to my car. I was still exhausted, lagging from my chronic lack of sleep. I barely had the energy to get changed for bed, and I was asleep almost before my head hit the pillow. I did wake up several times that night, enough that I ended up staying in bed almost until 11 in the morning the next day. It was a holiday, so it was an indulgence I could allow for myself, just this once.
The entire night had been overlapping, confusing dreams, a mix of Chuck and Bryce. I dreamed about having sex…waking from the dream about Chuck mid-orgasm, which happened every now and again. Only then to have another dream about having sex with Bryce…waking from that dream swollen and unsatisfied. I reached for my vibrator to relieve the pressure.
It took three orgasms before I could fall back to sleep, each one more intense than the previous one…all filling my head with thoughts of only Chuck and what I wished would happen, what I almost believed could happen…if I merely kissed him again.
